Category: Uncategorized

Before I attempt resuming something akin to regular posting, I’m easing back into blog-world by simply updating you on what has been the soundtrack to my life over the past couple few months.  Here goes!

Andrew Bird – Fitz and the Dizzyspells EP

This one has been on such heavy rotation at the house that I’ve made everyone sick of it… including myself.  But it is just that good.  It is a collection of songs that eventually ended up on his latest full-length Noble Beast, but these are snapshots of those songs in earlier development.  And in my opinion, these versions are the better ones.

Andrew Bird – See the Enemy

Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

I was first introduced to Phoenix a couple years ago by a friend.  I think they had some songs on the Napoleon Dynamite soundtrack.  I liked it, but thought it was a little quirky… both the movie and the band.  Anyway, with the release of Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, this French band manages to retain some quirkiness, while producing interesting music.  I don’t watch TV, but I hear that they have had a good bit of exposure there.

Phoenix – Armistice

The Welcome Wagon – Welcome to the Welcome Wagon

On first listen, I thought it was Sufjan Stevens playing a trick by releasing a new album under a different moniker.  And yet no…  the wait for another release from the indie music poster child continues.  While not sharing the same voice, they do share the same label.  Religious messages conveyed in music that doesn’t sound churchy?  I’m in.

The Welcome Wagon – He Never Said a Mumblin’ Word

We Were Promised Jetpacks – These Four Walls

Judging from the thick brogue, these folks hail from the land of bagpipes and kilts.  I’m guessing they employ neither.

We Were Promised Jetpacks – It’s Thunder and It’s Lightning

Passion Pit – Manners

Their meteoric rise to popularity is problematic for me, because it makes me look like every other musical fad following wannabe.  But it is good, so they make the cut.

Passion Pit – The Reeling

Blitzen Trapper – Black River Killer

This is the most recent addition to my fall line-up.  I was first turned on to this band when I heard their song, Furr.  I liked them enough to include on last year’s “Best of.”  And the more I find out, the more I have reason to like.  They’re from the Pacific Northwest… Portland to be exact.  And like all great indie band/musicians from that area, they are on SubPop’s label.  You are getting to sample the title track here.

Blitzen Trapper – Black River Killer

Ok, there are others that could be mentioned, but these are the highlights.  Let the listening enjoyment begin!

Do you remember that time when I sort of used to have a blog?  Yeah, me too.

There was even a brief stretch when I posted EVERY day.

This summer has been loaded with adventures, yet nary a word about it here.  Pathetic.

In a week or so, I plan on actually resuming more regular postings.

Until then…  move along.

Sometimes, John Piper will say things that leave me scratching my head in bewilderment, and other times I feel like he and I could have been college roommates.

This post on TV would be evidence of the latter.  The whole thing is worth reading (even if I don’t agree with every word), but the section found below could have been titled “Taido on TV.”

But leave sex aside (as if that were possible for fifteen minutes on TV). It’s the unremitting triviality that makes television so deadly. What we desperately need is help to enlarge our capacities to be moved by the immeasurable glories of Christ. Television takes us almost constantly in the opposite direction, lowering, shrinking, and deadening our capacities for worshiping Christ.

Not to put words in his mouth, but what I think Piper means is that television glorifies the trivial and in doing so simultaneously diminishes that which is truly significant.

BTW, for two-more-cents on media, here’s what my missionary friend in Florida shared today.

Which reminds me…  I saw the second installment of Transformers last night.  I should have known, but it was extraordinarily stupid.  Don’t get me wrong, I loved seeing some Optimus Prime go nuts on the entire Deceptacon army, but the whole movie could have been forty-five minutes shorter had they cut out the decidedly uninteresting “love” story.  I literally laughed at the climactic moment when the leads exchanged their heartfelt expressions of love.  It was a joke, which would explain why I thought it was funny.  But I certainly knew what I was in for…  a movie that would be high on entertainment and completely devoid of substance.

I realize that I’m both knocking media and extolling its cheap-entertainment value in the same post.  And so, the tension that characterizes so many areas of my life persists.  Like the tension I’m feeling right now that I really should be working on promised posts about how we read the Bible.

How do I live with myself?

Each summer, we take our middle school students for several days away from the comforts of home and civilization to something simply known as D-Camp.  The vision is simple enough…  spend several days challenging students in all sorts of ways.  They are pushed to overcome certain fears…  fear of heights, fear of not being in control, fear of bugs, fear of dirt, fear of water; and instead learn to trust…  trust ropes, trust people holding ropes, trust people standing on ladders.

Of course, the same challenges are faced in relationships, as well.  There is the fear of betrayal, fear of rejection, fear of not fitting in, fear of being made fun of.  But slowly (sometimes, very slowly) that is transformed into trusting others… leaders, peers, work crew, camp speakers, worship leaders, etc…

But the ultimate hope is that in the challenge to face fears and embrace trust that the same thing might happen spiritually.  That middle school students will push through the obstacles keeping them from living lives devoted to Christ (and they are many), and instead choose to trust in the One who is entirely trustworthy.

Here’s the week captured in photos and condensed into ten-minutes:

Working with students, I find myself occasionally in conversations like this.  BTW, at least one of the questions posed is being argued even today among “grown” people.  I’ll let you decide which it is.

I’m still working on the posts related to how we read/misread Scripture, but I had to pass this along.  You likely already know this (I mean, who doesn’t follow every step Coldplay makes), but Chris and company are giving away an album.  It is of the ‘live’ variety.

Ok, so what are you waiting for?  Click on the image above or here to get your very own!

I realize that I’ve neglected the blog for over a week, but the Lenten observance of daily posting left me somewhat blogged-out.  I’m hoping that from here on out, I’ll be posting on a more than once a week basis.

In addition to the practice of daily posting, I was reading a devotional by N.T. Wright entitled Reflecting the Glory which proved to be immensely helpful in focusing my thoughts in anticipation of Easter.   I recently acquired another book by Wright called Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision.  It is something of a response to John Piper’s critique of Wright’s “New Perspective” on Paul.  While I believe that this particular theological conversation is immensely important, my guess is that most would be bored with the debate.

Boring theology noted, Wright’s makes some observations concerning certain understandings of “the gospel” that are worth repeating here.

God made humans for a purpose: not simply for themselves, not simply so that they could be in relationship with him, but so that through them, as his image-bearers, he could bring his wise, glad, fruitful order to the world.  And the closing scenes of scripture, in the book of Revelation, are not about humans beings going off to heaven to be in a close and intimate relationship with God, but about heaven coming to earth.  The intimate relationship with God which is indeed promised and celebrated in that great scene of the New Jerusalem issues at once in an outflowing, a further healing creativity, the river of the water of life flowing out from the city, and the tree of life springing up, with leaves that are for the healing of the nations … God is rescuing us from the shipwreck of the world, not so that we can sit back and put our feet up in his company, but so that we can be part of his plan to remake the world. We are in orbit around God and his purposes, not the other way around.

I should probably read that last sentence once a week day.

I’m not really sure how U2 does it, but I guess being the biggest rock and roll band in the world gives them license to do pretty much whatever.  And yet, I’m still amazed that they can record songs that are so overtly “Christian” and simultaneously sell out arenas and stadiums around the globe.  While their music frequently has religious themes woven into it, not since ’40’ has one been so blatantly theocentric.  So my little Easter present to you is this modern day hymn.

“Magnificent”

Magnificent
Magnificent

I was born
I was born to be with you
In this space and time
After that and ever after I haven’t had a clue
Only to break rhyme
This foolishness can leave a heart black and blue

Only love, only love can leave such a mark
But only love, only love can heal such a scar

I was born
I was born to sing for you
I didn’t have a choice but to lift you up
And sing whatever song you wanted me to
I give you back my voice
From the womb my first cry, it was a joyful noise…

Only love, only love can leave such a mark
But only love, only love can heal such a scar

Justified till we die, you and I will magnify
The Magnificent
Magnificent

Only love, only love can leave such a mark
But only love, only love unites our hearts

Justified till we die, you and I will magnify
The Magnificent
Magnificent
Magnificent

Easter is about real life, not escapist fantasy. Easter is about God’s judgment, calling the world to account and setting up his new, glorious creation of freedom and peace, and summoning all people everywhere to live in this new world. Easter is about God’s rich welcome to all humankind. We Easter people are called to celebrate all of that in practical ways as well as in glad and uninhibited worship.

Word.

Despite the unusual name, it is another amazing find in the Natural State.